Third International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

The paper explores the cinematic spaces in contemporary American film in relation to the triad of spatial practices, representations of space, and representational spaces produced through a variety of exclusions. These exclusions reproduce the dominant discourse. Visual analysis of three contemporary films explored how spaces conceived in cinema (spaces produced through the process of filmmaking) deviate from the social practices of divergent groups within these spaces. The production of these cinematic spaces does not correspond with the lived experience of the margin, as they reinforce racial and gender biases to reproduce the dominant ideologies. The production of the ‘New South’ within these cinematic spaces is reminiscent of the idyllic antebellum South. The representational spaces of these films also conceal the hegemonic power relations between the dominant form of representation and the margin. These spaces recreate the dominant discourse, which are seldom challenged by alternative representations. The production of these representations brings in the spaces of heterotopias such as bars, washrooms, city streets and alleys, graveyards and the fantasmatic, all of which reify the dominant discourse through cinematic narratives.